


Coping Mechanisms

by Anarchyinplasma



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Bad Dreams, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, carwash siblings, exercise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26479147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarchyinplasma/pseuds/Anarchyinplasma
Summary: Carolina turns a bad night into a slightly better one with an old Freelancer tradition and Wash comes along for the ride.
Relationships: Agent Carolina/Agent York (Red vs. Blue), Agent South Dakota/Agent Washington (Red vs. Blue)
Kudos: 19





	Coping Mechanisms

**Author's Note:**

> This actually felt like it flowed onto the page really well, I do hope someone enjoys it. I've been on a Yorkalina reading kick going through literally half a decade old bookmarks and it's been a while since I wrote anything RvB so I figured I might as well post. C&C as always welcome.

Carolina doesn’t wake up with a scream trapped in her throat, she’s not that kind of person, even in her nightmares she’s well trained enough to be analysing the situation and walking herself through her standard checklist. Evaluate, identify, act. She’s never been the kind of person or solider that lies back in a near-death situation and waits for the end, even in a nightmarish recreation of Maine’s hand around her neck and the jolt turning into the freefall that was the edge of the cliff, the freezing, rotting and gnawing pain that was having her AI ripped from their sockets, she still tries to act, even when her hand goes to her side and doesn’t find her grapple. Unfortunately this has other consequences.

Carolina shoots up in a sitting position with her system flooded with enough adrenaline to make a sloth move like an olympic runner. She’s breathing hard, everything about her brain and body in fight mode as she catalogues the entire room down to the grains of the metal walls. Mentally she goes through her normal checklist to get herself back to sleep, measure her breathing, calm her heart-rate. She lies down and then her adrenaline flooded but still sleep addled brain finally catches on to the flaw in this checklist; she’s alone in bed.

Thanks to the adrenaline starting to wake her brain up she has enough self awareness to realise that this is the part that hurts before the sense of loneliness coils around her heart and settles there. The spectre of her pain doesn’t dig it’s fangs in, not yet, but they rest on top of her still pounding heart, digging deeper with every heartbeat and movement as she sinks into memory with a bittersweet smile ghosting over her lips and tears that she’ll never shed just prickling at the corners of her eye sockets.

In years past when this happened York was normally in her cot, a reassuring arm over her waist even if her sudden movements didn’t wake him up, a constant reminder that he’d always have her back in every single situation. On nights he was away, she’d pace restlessly, either crawling into his cot with him or wrapping herself up in his blankets and sleep clothes if he was away on assignment. That used to be enough to let the adrenaline flush out of her system, even in the later days of the project. But she’s not had York for a very long time now. A part of her is distressed at her inability to cope without him, it’s been years but she’s still drawn to his orbit like a pair of binary stars. Endlessly circling each other in constant companionship amidst the vastness of space. Except now he’s not there to keep her steady. Carolina’s gravity has changed; she has her own little star system in the Reds and Blues, Wash and Church/Epsilon have taken the grounding presences in their little expanded social solar systems, much like Alpha Squad had worked in amongst the Freelancers as a whole. But they’re not York, not even close to fulfilling his role in her life.

A hand finds its way up to her dog-tags and the rings threaded with the abnormal number of metal tags onto the chain, presses the cluster of metal against her heart under her shirt and Carolina takes comfort in the tiniest reminder of his presence that she can still claim to have while she waits for the adrenaline high to dissipate and the real venomous bite of her past to sink it’s fangs in deep. She knows it’ll happen, it always does and she has a system for dealing with her pain, it’s just longer than it used to be, built off the previous one that’s so hardwired into her brain that whoever performs her eventual autopsy will probably see it plain as day.

She takes a few more deep breaths, savouring the feeling of the metal in her hand against her chest as it starts to warm up to her body as the last of the unwanted adrenaline jitters fade; and then the renewed realisation that York will never be here to hold her ever again and she’ll die without feeling his touch hits her just as hard as it does every night and she curls up fractionally more under the blankets, waiting for the more miserable section of the night to pass and her emotional stability to start shoring itself up again.

She unhooks the chain around her neck and threads her rings off, places them back on her finger in order and replaces her dog-tags. The sapphire on her engagement ring gleams darkly in the nearly black room and the reminder that “death do us part” has been and happened doesn’t change Carolina’s thoughts on the matter.  
“If there is an afterlife,” she grumbles to herself as she swings her legs out of bed and sits up, rubbing her eyes and pulling her running gear off the chair next to her, “you’d better not be chatting anyone else up, or I swear to god York I will beat you to death when I get to you.” She knows exactly the shitty joke he’d go with.  
“We’re already dead ‘Lina, that’ll be a good trick if you can pull it off.”

She grabs her earbuds as she makes her way out of the room, rolling her shoulders out as she walks down the corridor. The door to Wash’s room is ajar, which is very unusual for him unless he’s having a bad night; so she pokes her head in to see how he’s doing. Similarly to her he’s lacing up his running shoes, giving her a brief look when her head pokes around his doorway.  
“York?” he asks, double knotting one shoe and starting on the other. Carolina nods.  
“South?” she replies, waiting for him out of courtesy, running in a pack was and always will be a Freelancer tradition.  
Wash shrugs.  
“Among other things, yeah.”

They make their way outside together, setting aside a couple of water bottles in the small base’s kitchen for when they get back.  
“Five three and two?” Carolina asks as they set off and Wash nods,  
“Sounds good boss.” He puts his earbuds in and Carolina does the same. Picking up her pace just a little to put a little space between them. This is their usual system; has been since the earliest days of the MoI. A few laps without much talking for rhythm and peaceful exercise. Then a couple less and slower laps in a tighter pack for conversation; and one or two slow for a cooldown before they hit the showers and the day starts in earnest. They’ve adjusted the numbers for their new run of course, the Mother of Invention did not possess a several mile cross country run.

Carolina settles into her rhythm with a grin, losing herself in the feel of the ground and the pre-dawn look of the course, stars glittering overhead while the cold air freezes and drags at her windpipe. She yawns involuntarily and grimaces, focusing on evening out her breathing again. Thoughts of York making his way through the Freelancer’s morning runs with a permanent yawn plastered across his face even as he stayed effortlessly at the front with her cross her mind with a genuine smile, unburdened by the rest of her thoughts that night. She thinks back to endless memories of morning exercise with all fifty Freelancers separated into their respective squads and running courses. Alpha squad at the front, with herself and York at the head of the pack, North Wash and South behind them; followed by CT, then Flordia and Wyoming, York would always make comments about how ridiculous the latter looked with his finely groomed moustache waxed and sculpted to perfection even at “oh-five-hundred-hours on a fucking Monday” and Carolina remembers holding back her laughter with a grin and forcing him to work a little harder to keep up with her every time. She gives Wash the hand signal for ‘back soon’ over her shoulder as they enter their final lap and then takes off, pushing her legs as hard as they’ll go. Long sprints are essential to making sure she’s still in condition to use her speed enhancement and this is a long-established piece of her morning routine.

She comes back around to Wash as they enter the start of their slower laps, breathing hard and with a self satisfied smile on her face as one hand reaches up to feel her pulse hammering under her fingers.  
“Do you have to do that?” he asks as Carolina slows to match his pace.  
“Yes.” she tells him, no nonsense. Feeling the raw burn in every single strand of muscle in her legs as she gives them a chance to rest slightly. “Maybe if you could have learned to run that fast South wouldn’t have dragged you through laps so CT didn't literally run you down.”  
“She only did that once.” Wash mumbles; and Carolina manages a bark of laughter despite her heaving lungs. The image of a younger, blonder and freshly minted Agent Washington getting unceremoniously shoved out of the way by the diminutive waif that was CT because he started flagging behind plays in her mind, alongside the image of an irate South Dakota dragging a stuttering Wash along by the collar and forcing him to keep up with her pace.

“She loved you really.” Carolina teases. “At least she did before… Everything.”  
“Which one are you talking about?” Wash asks; feet hammering the ground as he fights to keep up with Carolina’s unconsciously gaining pace while holding a conversation.  
“South, I think. Unless York was right about what all that knife training with Connie really was.”  
Wash rolls his eyes at that.  
“No it really was just knife training. Things were knife related with South too in fact, that was the worrying part.”  
“I really do not need to hear about South’s kink list Wash.” Carolina warns him, Wash’s mouth twists into something between a grin and a grimace.  
“She always did like scars on my back, guess it makes sense that’s where she put the bullet.”  
Carolina makes a faux gagging sound and leans away from him.  
“You have issues, little brother.”

“Yeah. Because I’m the one who paced around the entire ship for almost literally two days straight when her boyfriend was overdue on his minimum return window and put Iowa through a wall for taking some pasta.” Wash fires back, the run-on sentence and his hard-working lungs making him wheez slightly to spit the words out. Carolina huffs.  
“I wasn’t that worried, I knew he could take care of himself.” Wash snorts as they move into a slower cool-down lap.  
“Yeah, totally, that’s why you spent two days pacing through the entire ship for news.” He reiterates. Carolina gives another huff.

“At least my husband,” She flashes her rings meaningfully in the dim light of the now-rising sun, “didn’t break my arm in a sparring match for being worried about him.” Wash blushes as red as his sister’s hair.  
“You should have seen what she did when I proposed.”

Carolina is so surprised at that remark that she actually manages to trip over her own foot and winds up sprawling over the grass wet and dirt while Wash stops running and collapses into laughter.  
“You proposed!?” She questions, voice in that squeaky surprised range that York teased her about relentlessly whenever he got the chance. Wash barely manages a “yes” through his laughter at the sheer look of surprise and confusion on Carolina’s face.  
“To Agent SOUTH Dakota?” The elder sibling clarifies. Wash nods.  
“We were going pretty steady at that point.”  
“What the hell did she do to you?”

Wash blushes more thoroughly red than she’s ever seen him and Carolina raises an eyebrow.  
“Do I even want to know?”  
“You remember that time I had my leg in a cast for ages and no-one ever figured out why?”  
“Oh my god.” Carolina whispers. “She actually broke your leg for giving her a ring.” She starts laughing but Wash shakes his head.  
“Not quite. She broke my leg, but it was while we were…” he gives a cough and Carolina’s brain puts the pieces together a millisecond before he finishes the sentence with “celebrating.”

“I can’t figure out if I want to vomit or laugh.” Carolina mumbles, weakly, caught totally off guard by this new information. Wash mumbles something she doesn’t catch and is a hundred percent sure she probably doesn’t want to at this point.

They make their way back inside and grab their set aside water from the counter, reminiscing about the better days of the project until a glance at the clock on the wall reminds them that it’s still half four in the morning and they are technically supposed to be on holiday.

Carolina grabs another bottle of water and heads straight back to her room, grabbing her sleepwear and taking a quick shower to get rid of the sweat and the dirt before she climbs back into bed with a book. She won’t be getting any more sleep tonight but she can occupy her brain with better ways than killing herself with exercise or sliding into a depressed haze.

She curls up with her book, losing herself in the pages and the characters and for that window of time York could almost be with her, chin on her head and holding her as close as he could because the man was nothing if not an utter sap when he was tired. Her alarm bleeps after a while and Carolina smacks it instantly, withdrawing under her blankets. Her process for dealing with bad nights might not be as simple as it was years ago, but she has a new system, the rings on her hand glint as she turns the pages and even just the simple act makes her smile. Even during the hard years after the crash, York it would seem had decided to stay with her in some way or another.


End file.
